Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu’s official biography, Rakushidō nenroku, in the entry for Genroku 16 (1703).8.26, describes three portraits that he had commissioned from the Kano school artist Tsunenobu (1636-1713) in the autumn of 1702 and took possession of on this day.
The portrait of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu reproduced on p. 22 of In the Shelter of the Pine is one of these. It depicts Yoshiyasu holding the tufted white whisk (hossu) that he had received from the Ōbaku monk Gaoquan Xingdun in the Fourth Month of 1692. The portrait is also inscribed with a Chinese-style poem composed by Yoshiyasu himself, in which he hints at the whisk that he holds and the use to which he intends to put it. Transcribed from left to right, it reads:
汝是我我非汝
何用分假分眞
腰佩金剛寳釼
掃退野鬼閑神
I am most grateful to my colleague Professor Ōmori Nobunori 大森信徳, a specialist in Chinese literature, who interpreted Yoshiyasu’s poem for me as follows:
汝是れ我にして我汝に非ず
(nanji kore ware ni shite ware nanji ni arazu)何を用つてか假を分かち真を分かつ
(nani o motte ka itsuwari o wakachi makoto o wakatsu)腰に金剛宝剣を佩び
(koshi ni kongō hōken o obi)野鬼閑神を掃き退けん
(yaki kanjin o haki shirizoken)
In English, this might be rendered:
You are me, and yet I am not you
How then can we distinguish between falsehood and truth?
Bearing the precious sword of the diamond king at my waist,
[With this whisk] I shall sweep away demons of delusion.
Professor Ōmori suggested that “the precious sword of the diamond king” may be a reference to section 43 of Linji yulu 臨済語録, J. Rinzai goroku, the “recorded sayings” of the influential Tang period Chan monk Linji Yixuan (d. 866). In Burton Watson’s translation, the passage reads:
The Master said to a monk, “At times my shout is like the precious sword of the Diamond King. At times my shout is like a golden-haired lion crouching on the ground. At times my shout is like the search pole and the shadow grass. At times my shout doesn’t work like a shout at all. Do you understand?” The monk started to answer, whereupon the Master gave a shout.
Watson’s note explains that the precious sword is that of wisdom that cuts off all delusion.
(From Burton Watson, The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-chi: A Translation of the Lin-chi lu [Boston and London: Shambhala, 1993; rpt. Columbia University Press, 1999], 98-99.)
Professor Ōmori also suggested that Yoshiyasu omitted the character for king, 王, from the third line of his poem so as to preserve the six-character line format.